Winter sports - Researchers: Winter vacations are not going under
Despite rising temperatures and decreasing amounts of snow, Alpine winter holiday resorts are not threatened with a premature end to their business in the coming years. The vast majority of ski resorts will be able to continue operating with the help of snow cannons despite advancing climate change, and other forms of winter tourism are also gaining in importance. This is indicated by both scientific studies and assessments from the vacation industry.
"It's horror stories that we will no longer have winter tourism," says Munich-based tourism researcher Jürgen Schmude. "Winter sports tourism will become less important, but winter tourism as such will not."
The past winter of 2022/23 was so bleak that the local ski resort in Lenggries, Bavaria, had to temporarily cease operations in January due to a lack of snow. Nevertheless, the evidence does not suggest that inflation, the mood of crisis or fear of a lack of snow are deterring holidaymakers.
"You always have to look at the individual case, but we will probably see a spatial concentration process in larger and higher-lying resorts, while it will be difficult for lower-lying ski resorts," says tourism researcher Schmude.
In August of this year, an international group of scientists published a much-noticed study according to which climate change is exacerbating the problems of ski resorts - both in and outside the Alps - with snow, water supply and energy consumption.
"Assuming that 50 percent of all ski resorts have snowmaking capability, 3 percent of the 294 Austrian ski resorts included in the study have a very high snow supply risk at plus 2 degrees Celsius," says Judith Köberl from Joanneum Graz, one of the authors.
"For the Alps as a whole, the proportion at plus 2 degrees amounts to 9 percent of the 915 ski resorts considered."
Ski Arlberg Austrian research project on winter snow cover in the Alps Garmisch "Classic" ski resort Scientific article: "Climate change exacerbates snow-water-energy challenges for European ski tourism" In: Nature Climate Change 13, 935-942 (2023)
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Source: www.stern.de
